Global and Regional Peacekeepers: Trends, Opportunities, Risks and a Way Ahead
| Published date | 01 February 2017 |
| Author | Paul D. Williams |
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12393 |
Global and Regional Peacekeepers: Trends,
Opportunities, Risks and a Way Ahead
Paul D. Williams
George Washington University
Abstract
Never before has it been so important for policymakers to balance regional and global forms of peacekeeping. Although the
United Nations Security Council retains primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security and is the single
largest source of peacekeepers, some regional organizations, particularly in Africa and Europe, are playing increasingly impor-
tant roles. This article analyzes the relationship between UN peace operations and those conducted by regional organizations.
After summarizing recent trends in regional-global collaboration it analyzes the opportunities and risks of increasing the
regionalization of peace operations. Current policy challenges are daunting, not least because better-resourced missions alone
will not bring peace to contemporary warzones. Rather, policymakers should clarify the nature and limits of UN peace opera-
tions; ensure partnerships between the UN and regional organizations can deliver effective peace operations in the field; and
embed peace operations within a viable conflict resolution strategy to end the war or crisis in question.
Recent high-level reviews have analyzed the state of
United Nations (UN) peace operations, the roles of new
technologies in peacekeeping, the global peacebuilding
architecture, and the poor state of implementing the
women, peace, and security agenda (UN 2014, 2015a,
2015b, 2015c). Debates about how best to implement their
recommendations continue. The global-regional axis is an
important dimension of those debates, especially in Africa,
where most UN peacekeepers and regional operations have
been deployed.
The UN Security Council remains the most authoritative
institution on issues of international peace and security
across the globe, including peace operations. The UN has
conducted more peacekeeping operations than any other
party –72 between 1948 and 2016 –and has deployed, by
far, the largest number of peacekeepers. This reflects the rel-
atively high levels of legitimacy the UN can generate for its
missions and the fact that it is one of the few international
organizations that can financially sustain its operations in
the field.
But the UN has never had a monopoly on peacekeeping.
Between 1946 and 2016, thirteen regional organizations
conducted 65 peace operations (see Appendix S1). The rise
in regional operations reflected a broader trend of regional
organizations assuming greater roles in responding to peace
and security challenges (Crocker et al., 2011). Sometimes
these organizations challenged UN primacy but, especially
since the end of the Cold War, they more frequently part-
nered with the UN to maintain international peace and
security (Gelot, 2012). This article provides an overview of
recent trends in regional-global collaboration with regard to
peace operations and analyzes the opportunities and risks
of increasing regionalization.
The new regional landscape: seven recent trends
Regionalization in peace operations is commonly under-
stood in both empirical and explicitly normative terms.
Empirically, it denotes the increasing participation of regio-
nal organizations in peace operations. In normative terms, it
refers to the idea that each region of the world ‘should be
responsible for its own peacemaking and peacekeeping,
with some financial and technical support from the West
but few, if any, military or police contingents from outside
the region’(Goulding, 2002, p. 217).
As a shorthand descriptor for what is happening across
the contemporary peacekeeping landscape, ‘regionalization’
is misleading in several respects. First, regional organizations
are not the only important actors in peace operations; the
UN, coalitions, and individual states play significant roles as
well. Moreover, when regional organizations deploy peace
operations, such forces are usually limited to a coalition of
willing members within the organization. Second, regional-
ization is occurring unevenly across regions. While some
regions are willing and able to conduct peace operations,
others have the will but lack the relevant capabilities; some
dislike the idea of conducting military operations but are
keen to undertake political and observer missions; still other
regional organizations have no desire to perform collective
peace operations of any sort; and some parts of the world
have no significant regional arrangements at all. Third, not
all regional arrangements confine their activities to their
own region; for example, some Western regional organiza-
tions, such as the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO), operate well beyond their own
neighborhoods. These are the exceptions rather than the
rule in the domain of regional peace operations.
©2017 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2017) 8:1 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12393
Global Policy Volume 8 . Issue 1 . February 2017
124
Special Section Article
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